Diamond materials have attracted tremendous attention for centuries due to their wide range of extreme properties. The applications of diamond are further extended when diamond particles are used to coat substrate surfaces. Currently, the most common methods for the fabrication of diamond thin films and coatings use chemical vapor deposition (CVD), involving a gas-phase chemical reaction occurring above a solid surface which becomes coated as a result of diamond deposition (H. O. Pierson, Handbook of Carbon, Graphite, Diamond and Fullerenes. Properties, Processing and Applications. Noyes Publ., Park Ridge, N.J., USA, 1993). While various CVD methods differ in their details, they all share common features such as sophisticated and costly equipment (e.g., vacuum chamber, reactor, furnace, and heater or plasma generator, gas flow meters/controllers, etc.), extreme reaction conditions (e.g., temperature in the range of 1000-1400K), and precise control of gas flow. This group of methods also requires the substrate to be resistant to high temperature and show modest reactivity towards carbon.
Therefore, as a result of the inherent difficulties with the above-described CVD methods of generating diamond coatings, efforts directed toward the development of alternative, facile and low-cost methods for coating substrate surfaces with diamond are worth pursuing.